Fox News

Fox News Defends Trump’s State-Sponsored Political Extortion as Just ‘The Art of the Deal’

Posted by on September 20, 2019 at 2:00 pm. 6 Comments :

The news that Donald Trump may have promised the president of Ukraine hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid if he would open a bogus investigation into Joe Biden has captured the attention of the press. And rightfully so. This would amount to state-sponsored extortion by Trump in order to smear a political opponent. And it wouldn’t even be the first time that Trump has conspired with a foreign country to steal an election (see: Russia, 2016).

Donald Trump, Fox News, White House

As this scandal continues to build steam, Trump is managing to get himself into even more hot water. In a press avail with the Prime Minister of Australia, Trump gave contradictory answers about what he knew about the affair. In fact, when asked if he read the report he contradicted himself in the space of a single sentence saying, “No I haven’t. I just – I tell you, everybody’s read it. They laugh at it.” He went on to attack the press, as usual, saying that “Our media has become the laughingstock of the world […] You’re a joke.” Which only proves that he is pitifully incapable of recognizing who the world is actually laughing at.

In the midst of this unfolding melodrama, Fox News is adopting their routine position as Trump-fluffing propaganda disseminators. And taking the lead is Trump’s favorite morning show, Fox and Friends. Their defense of Trump is a bizarre spectacle of ludicrous justifications for Trump’s potentially treasonous behavior (video below). Co-host Steve Doocy began by telling his dimwitted viewers to…

“Keep in mind this whistleblower filed this report with the inspector general of the Intel community on August the 12th. That was over a month ago. Then they kicked it around, sent it to the Department of Justice, and said ‘We do not have to hand it over to Congress.'”

First of all, it is entirely improper for the Justice Department to interfere in this process in any way. It negates the whole purpose of the Whistleblower Protection Act if the President’s henchmen (Attorney General William Barr, et al) can suppress information provided in good faith by insiders concerned about national security. And it endangers the welfare of the whistleblower whose identity is disclosed to people who have motive to retaliate.

That said, after having improperly interfered, the Justice Department has no authority to rule that the complaint can’t be turned over to Congress. The law says unambiguously that it “shall” be turned over. So the Justice Department is wrong, and Fox News is wrong to excuse this breach of the law. But Doocy wasn’t finished. He continued…

“The reason the whistleblower apparently said that it was ‘serious’ and ‘urgent’ is because that designation usually automatically triggers it getting to Congress. The Department of Justice says that that is not appropriate, so we don’t have to give it to the Committee. Well, somebody with knowledge of this person’s story didn’t like the fact that Congress wasn’t gonna get it and it wasn’t gonna become public. So they leaked the story to the Washington Post.”

Again, none of this is the Justice Department’s call. But Doocy is also introducing something that was never a part of this. He implies that somebody wanted this to become public. But had the complaint been turned over to Congress, they would have reviewed it privately. The only reason any of this is becoming public is because the process was breached by the administration.

It’s ironic that Fox News is more worried about this complaint leaking than the substance of the complaint which is Trump’s attempts to extort and/or bribe a foreign country and to pressure them into aiding his election fraud. But if you thought that Fox was bothered by any of that, here’s what Doocy’s co-host Ainsley Earhardt had to say about it:

“They say the President was making promises, leaking delicate information to another heads of state. But this is what they do. They talk. They negotiate. And the President’s known for that. The art of the deal. Who’s leaking this? Is it someone that works at the White House?”

So to Fox News this is standard operating procedure in negotiations. They consider it acceptable for Trump to bully foreign leaders into manufacturing political dirt on his opponents. They regard it as simple dealmaking, despite the fact that there are no components of this deal that are in the interests of the United States. It is a purely hostile swipe at Biden, who Trump expects to run against next year. So Earhardt is defending dealmaking that is only intended to disrupt an election. But then again, that’s what Fox News does every day. Disrupting elections by airing distortions and lies is the whole reason Fox News exists.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox News Hack Lies About Having Seen Trump’s ‘New’ Border Wall – That Doesn’t Exist

Posted by on September 19, 2019 at 2:12 pm. 4 Comments :

The blatant partisan biases of Fox News have been well documented for many years. And yet the network continues to pretend that they have some measure of journalistic integrity. They claim that their “news” and “opinion” sides are clearly delineated and that viewers are smart enough to tell the difference. But that’s wrong on two counts. First, there is no real separation of what they call news and the opinions that permeate nearly every report they air. And second, they think their viewers are smart?

Donald Trump, Fox News, Fake

On Thursday morning a segment on Fox and Friends featured an interview of Donald Trump by the network’s Chief National Correspondent, Ed Henry. Theoretically a correspondent with Henry’s title should be one of Fox’s alleged journalists. Nevermind that he’s a regular co-host of the ultra-opinionated Fox and Friends Morning Trump-Fluffing Show. This interview was jam-packed with Trumpian falsehoods and propaganda on subjects ranging from the Federal Reserve to gun reform.

However, one subject was highlighted by Henry when he bantered with his “Curvy Couch” potato colleagues back in the studio. Henry was interviewing Trump near Otay Mesa, California, where the President was visiting a section of the border wall that he claims to be building. And in his summation of their talk, Henry put his own spin what he encountered (video below):

“We’ve had Democrats on the show saying that the President is not telling the truth. That’s what they claim when he says and boasts that there’s new wall being built. I’m here to say the President is right and they are wrong. And that’s not an opinion. That’s my reporting with my own two eyes. I was there. There is in fact miles and miles of new wall being built and it’s working.”

Well then, that settles it. If Henry was there and saw a brand new wall with his own two eyes, it must be a box of wholesome fact morsels wrapped in golden ribbons of truthiness. Except for the fact that Henry was shamelessly lying. He was actually standing at the site where there was already an 18 foot wall that had been there for years. He even mentioned it himself in a long-winded response to questions from Mediaite.

What’s more, a photo taken in April of 2013 shows a wall already in place at the Otay Mesa site. And the Washington Post reported that the construction at the site where Trump and Henry talked was actually just “a 24-mile section of replacement barrier.”

In addition, Henry didn’t explore the length of the wall he was observing so he couldn’t possibly know if there were “miles and miles” of it. And as for it working, he merely cited some data that migration had slowed during the past few months. But it always slows during the summer due to the excessive heat that makes traveling on foot difficult and dangerous.

So Henry’s indignant insistence that Trump’s Democratic critics were wrong was pure, partisan bullcrap. And his reliance on his own two eyes suggests that his “vision” is seriously impaired by his blind allegiance to Trump. But this also puts the lie to the claim by Fox News that they differentiate between news and opinion. In fact, they don’t seem to have any news content at all. It’s a 24/7 right-wing opinion factory that is about as committed to truthtelling as Trump or his bootlicking lackey, Corey Lewandowski, who admitted to Congress that he has no obligation to be honest. That describes pretty much everyone in the Trump regime from top to bottom. And make no mistake, Fox News is a fully subscribed member of the Trump regime.

Here is how the Trump campaign promoted the Fox News propaganda piece by Ed Henry:

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump Tweets Yet Another Racist Lie About a Democratic Woman of Color, Rep. Ilhan Omar

Posted by on September 18, 2019 at 5:17 pm. 7 Comments :

This is getting beyond tiresome. The bottomless well of Donald Trump’s bigotry continues to produce flagrantly racist bile that proves unarguably his repulsive lack of decency. There has never been a president more devoted to hatred than the one currently occupying the White House. And the American people are justifiably nauseated by his rancid prejudice.

Donald Trump, MAGA

On Wednesday morning Trump retweeted an abhorrent message from one of his loyal cult followers. Terrence K. Williams fancies himself an aspiring comedian, but like most ultra-conservatives who lash out at the underprivileged, he’s just revealing how disgustingly mean-spirited his brand of “humor” is. The tweet he posted falsely asserted that Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali-American who represents the 5th district of Minnesota, was allegedly caught on video in a celebratory dance on the anniversary of 9/11.

Rep. Omar herself made the correction to Trump’s lies in her own tweet that took note of the fact that such lies are putting her life, and the lives of others, in danger. (Media Matters captured a screen grab of the offensive tweet). As you may notice, the tweet that Trump referenced was deleted. That’s because it was later revealed that the video of Omar was actually from a Congressional Black Caucus event that took place on September 13.

Trump’s tweet remains on his Twitter feed as some sort of monument to his poisonous point of view. And he actually thinks this disgusting outburst will benefit his Republican Nationalist Party in the election next year. Likewise, Fox News covered this story without ever saying conclusively that the the original tweet and video were completely false representations of what occurred. Their headline says only that “Trump, Omar clash over video of ‘Squad’ member dancing.” But this wasn’t a “clash” which implies a difference of opinion. This was an outright lie that was so obvious even the original poster took it down.

Trump has promoted the tweets of Williams before. The last time it was a tweet that accused Hillary Clinton of murder. It regurgitated the conspiracy theory that there is a “Clinton Body Count” and that now Trump’s pal and pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, was the latest victim. The video in that tweet was also removed from Twitter, while Trump’s retweet is still there.

You have to wonder how much more of this can occur before some of Trump’s cult followers begin to see that he is advancing the cause of white nationalists and neo-Nazis. Or perhaps they don’t mind because they all agree. You can’t keep dismissing the fact that Trump repeatedly spews hateful bigotry unless you’re fully on board. The fact that Trump hasn’t just done this once or twice by “mistake” should make it clear that he is exactly what he seems to be: a vile, bigot who is exploiting hatred to inflame his dimwitted, glassy-eyed disciples. Hopefully this will come to an end before too many others are hurt.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump’s Hollywood Elitist MAGA Snowflakes Featured in Phony Fox News Controversy

Posted by on September 17, 2019 at 3:35 pm. 2 Comments :

The 2020 election continues to build up steam as Democratic candidates jockey for position and round up supporters and endorsements. However, on the Republican side, Donald Trump is taking a different approach that includes going to extraordinary lengths to keep the identity of his supporters secret. This may be the first campaign that has ever had to arrange for the anonymity of its allies.

Donald Trump, Hollywood

Following his cult rally in New Mexico, Trump made a dash for the border into California where he snuck in to avoid detection. He was there for a fundraiser at the mansion of real estate magnate, Jeffrey Palmer. What’s peculiar about this affair is that the attendees were herded into shuttle buses before being whisked off to a secret destination.

There was significant security employed to prevent these Tinseltown Trumpsters from suffering the indignity of being outed as supporters of the has-been TV game show host who now play-acts as the Reality TV President. Ed Henry of Fox News reported from the field for Fox and Friends and provided this account of the subterfuge (video below):

“The reason why the Trump campaign is being so tight-lipped with all these details is that you have these critics like Debra Messing basically trying what they say is ‘name and shame’ people. Blacklist people out here in Hollywood if they attend the event. […]

“Critics out here in Hollywood have been threatening to blacklist people – make sure they don’t get hired, they don’t get into pictures – if they show up for a Trump fundraiser. This highlights how ridiculous this has become because this is America. If you wanna support somebody, you wanna give some money, you’re supposed to be able to do that.”

What’s ridiculous about this is Henry’s assertions that people are not able to support the candidate of their choice. For most Americans there is a sense of pride and patriotism associated with their political advocacy. Nobody seems to be reluctant to admit they’re voting for Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Julian Castro, or Kamala Harris. So the take away from Henry’s analysis is that Trump supporters have real reasons to be ashamed of supporting Trump. And he may be right about that.

There is not, however, any truth to the allegation that Debra Messing, or anyone else, is blacklisting Hollywood’s Trump supporters. It’s actually laughable that Messing is alleged to have that kind of power. There is no central authority in showbiz that could execute a blacklist. Indeed, many of the biggest stars are proudly conservative, including Bruce Willis, Tom Selleck, Sylvester Stallone, Patricia Heaton, Kelsey Grammer, Tim Allen, and more. The ones who are whining about being discriminated against are primarily washed-out hacks whose failure is due to their own lack of talent (Antonio Sabato Jr, Scott Baio, Kid Rock, etc).

Henry’s claim that “Critics out here in Hollywood have been threatening to blacklist people” is typical Fox News bullcrap. He can’t cite a single instance of any such threat ever being made by anyone. And insiders know that Hollywood’s colors are neither red nor blue – they’re green. If an actor can sell tickets they get the job. So if Trump supporters insist on anonymity, it’s because of their own shame for backing an ignorant, narcissistic, racist, who embarrasses the nation at every opportunity, cozies up to brutal foreign tyrants, and lies every time he opens his mouth.

No wonder Trump supporters are ashamed. But that’s their problem and has nothing to do with any imaginary, organized, liberal, Hollywood boycott. They are just making excuses for their own insecurity and inability to defend their idiotic political choices. It’s the same sort of derangement that causes right-wingers to whine that they are being banned on social media (they’re not). The Trump cultists are simply too thin-skinned to face reality. That weakness is even more pronounced in the elitist Trumpsters who work in Hollywood. And they call liberals “snowflakes”?

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox News Shill Geraldo Rivera Confirms Trump is a Racist While Arguing that He Isn’t a Racist

Posted by on September 13, 2019 at 12:12 pm. 2 Comments :

The debate over whether or not Donald Trump is a racist has been over for months, years really. The evidence is in his frequent and virulent hate speech, as well as his policies that are deliberately aimed at disadvantaging people of color. And the fact that he is supported by the nation’s most prominent white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups is further proof of his embrace of bigotry.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Hate Again

Most people upon discovering that KKK leaders are praising them would stop and reflect on what they did or said to attract such loathsome admirers. But not Trump. He actually panders to them and refuses to make any outright criticisms. He invites them to the White House and recycles overtly racist tropes that history has condemned. He even told women of color – who happen to be members of Congress and U.S. citizens – to “go back you came from.”

Notwithstanding all of these facts, Fox News continues to pretend that there is nothing remotely racist about Trump. It’s a position that mimics the worshipful fawning of state run media in Russia, North Korea and other totalitarian regimes. And on Trump’s favorite Fox News morning show, Fox and Friends, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes earned their pay by ignoring the truth about Trump and slobbering over Dear Leader’s bottomless capacity for universal love.

Aside from the helpful montage of Democrats correctly pointing out that Trump is a racist, this clip features Steve Doocy wondering why they weren’t asked “What do you mean? What are you referring to?” The fact that he even bothers to ask that question demonstrates just how blind he is to reality, or more accurately, how blind they want their views to be. For the record, Doocy’s question has been answered many times, and this compilation from Vox serves as a convenient resource.

Later in the program, long-time Trump friend and blabbering sycophant, Geraldo Rivera, showed up for another of his regular appearances and began sucking up in the first few seconds of his segment. He started off with a glassy-eyed confession that “I love the President and I’ve known him for 45 years and he is not a racist.” Geraldo then blames Trump’s troubles on “sloppy rhetoric” that “makes him vulnerable” to charges of racism. But as he continues, Geraldo himself outlines Trump’s rancid bigotry that extends far beyond rhetoric:

“When the President says ‘shathole countries,’ and NFL players who kneel are ‘sons of bitches,’ and ‘Mexicans are rapists,’ I think that he should emphasize the positive.”

See? It’s as simple as that. Just ignore the fact that you’ve viciously insulted African countries, African-American athletes, and Latinx refugees fleeing violence and poverty. Focus on imaginary “positives” that can be exploited to brainwash the dimwitted Trump cultists and viewers of Fox News. Geraldo also advised Trump that “His staff should look more like the country. It should be more diverse.” That’s not the sort of advice you give to someone who isn’t noticeably prejudiced.

It’s ironic that Geraldo’s defense of Trump contains such a useful itemization of the evidence that he is, in fact, flagrantly racist. But Geraldo wants you to dismiss all of that and be filled with the same reverential and baseless adoration of Trump that he has. And this isn’t just the position of Geraldo. It’s the same irrational mask of delusion that all Republicans and Fox News hacks wear and that they want to strap onto you. It’s just that you don’t see them tugging at the strings this openly very often.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

John Bolton Texts Fox News Live to Say He Resigned, Contradicting Another Trump Lie

Posted by on September 10, 2019 at 12:12 pm. 3 Comments :

The administration of Donald Trump continues to be a hot mess. Having already achieved a record number of departures of White House top staff, Trump has just parted ways with his fourth National Security Advisor, John Bolton. Sources say that Trump and Bolton argued about the President’s foiled scheme to bring the Taliban to Camp David.

Donald Trump, John Bolton

The break up with Bolton leaves Trump’s national security team littered with “acting” heads, including National Security Advisor, Homeland Security Secretary, Director of National Intelligence, and Chief of Staff. These are all critical posts that have a particular significance during these times of international turmoil. Trump is awkwardly juggling relations with Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, China, Russia, and many more foreign hot spots that threaten American interests. But the nation under Trump’s “leadership” lacks competent management in the jobs that oversee those crucial areas of statecraft.

Trump announced Bolton’s dismissal in his usual way – via Twitter saying “I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation.” It isn’t surprising that Trump and Bolton disagreed. That was apparent even before Bolton was hired, and anyone paying attention knew it. But Trump’s staffing decisions are based on the shallowest criteria, such as how they look on Fox News.

Not surprisingly, Bolton had a different view of how his separation came about. Contrary to Trump’s claim that he asked Bolton to resign, Bolton says – also via Twitter – that he made the offer first. And just to drive the point home, Bolton live-tweeted Fox News where his pal and former colleague, Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends, read the tweet on the air:

https://twitter.com/LisPower1/status/1171458331216502785

So Bolton, a former Fox News contributor, hasn’t been unemployed for an hour and he’s already angling for his old job at back at Fox. But the more important question going forward is which Trump-fluffing Fox News shill will Trump name as the next National Security Advisor? There are several prospects in the the Fox family who would meet Trump’s low standards for work in his White House: 1) Be willing to lie unflinchingly for Trump; and … well, that’s pretty much it.

One candidate could be Walid Phares, a longtime right-wing pundit and advisor to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Phares distinguished himself as an Islamophobe and a crackpot conspiracy theorist with claims that tied President Obama and Hillary Clinton to the Muslim Brotherhood. Another candidate could be retired Gen. Jack Keane who makes frequent appearances on Fox defending Trump blindly for whatever the atrocity of the day happens to be.

However, a more likely candidate would be this favorite of Sean Hannity, Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who was a presenter on the recently shuttered NRA-TV before becoming a full-fledged Fox contributor who sometimes fills in for Hannity. Bongino has already caught Trump’s eye with a book that makes wild assertions about the “Deep State” spying on Trump. The President has tweeted about or retweeted Bongino 84 times. Typically they are just factless tributes to Trump’s imaginary awesomeness and virginal innocence, such as…

So we can expect the next National Security Advisor to be a worshipful member of the Trump cult. And he will join a team of hacks who have never been confirmed by the Senate because, according to Trump, “I like ‘acting’ because I can move so quickly.” In other words, he likes “acting” because he can just pull sycophantic, unqualified names out of his arse without having to get the constitutionally mandated consensus of the Senate. And sadly, in these troubled times that’s what America has to suffer though with our wannabe dictator in the White House.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

America First? Trump’s Attacks on the Media are Both Ignorant and Anti-American

Posted by on September 9, 2019 at 1:58 pm. 3 Comments :

Another day, another malicious assault on the Constitution and its First Amendment protections for a free press. Donald Trump is continuing to march toward a totalitarian state where he controls the media. And in his latest manic outburst on the subject he goes further than ever to lie about and threaten both journalists and American workers employed by the media that he so desperately hates.

Donald Trump, Rachel Maddow, Shepard Smith, Anderson Cooper

Trump’s noxious tweetstorm began with a gleeful nod to the news that an “activist investor” has acquired a bundle of AT&T stock:

“Great news that an activist investor is now involved with AT&T. As the owner of VERY LOW RATINGS @CNN, perhaps they will now put a stop to all of the Fake News emanating from its non-credible “anchors.” Also, I hear that, because of its bad ratings, it is losing a fortune…..”

Trump’s celebration of this investment is a typically shallow analysis considering the investor purchased a share of AT&T that is only a little more than one percent of its outstanding shares. That isn’t gong give him any real leverage, and he’ll have no role in board or management decisions. What’s more, shareholders have absolutely zero influence over the editorial content of a news network, nor should they. So Trump is wandering around in a fantasy world that he clearly knows nothing about.

Trump also knows nothing about the state of the cable news business. His hatred for CNN notwithstanding, the network is enjoying the highest ratings and revenue in its history. This is an example of Trump expressing the delusions in his diseased brain as if they had some correlation to reality. But what’s worse about this Twitter tantrum is that Trump is maligning an American company before the whole world. That is recklessly inappropriate for the President of the United States, and a betrayal of the thousands of American workers at CNN and AT&T.

In addition, Trump repeated the flagrant lie that foreign leaders have asked him “Why does the Media hate the U.S. sooo much?” Perhaps Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un might have asked him that, but they probably also ask why he doesn’t arrest and/or assassinate them. After all, he has openly yearned for those powers himself. For the record, the media doesn’t hate America, and they don’t even hate Trump. They hate lies, corruption, treason, and ignorance. It isn’t their fault that Trump exemplifies all of those abhorrent traits. But Trump wasn’t through ranting:

Once again, MSNBC’s ratings and revenue are growing rapidly. Trump may wish that news networks that tell the truth about him were failing, but the opposite is true. Meanwhile, at Fox News their ratings are still impressive, but their revenue is in a steep decline because advertisers don’t want to be associated with the Trump-fluffing, white supremacist dogma that is the hallmark of Fox. And if Trump is tiring of negative stories about him, he might try doing something positive for once. Or at least stop doing so many things that are objectively stupid, destructive, racist, and/or corrupt.

Trump went on to bash the media in general as “an arm of the Democrat Party.” without providing any proof whatsoever. But that’s been his modus operandi for years. And coming from someone who leans so heavily on his State TV network (aka Fox News), it’s starkly hypocritical. His intent is to drag down the reputation of the press to prevent people from taking it seriously when they report what he’s actually doing and saying. He actually admitted that to Leslie Stahl when she asked why he attacks the press. “You know why I do it?” he replied. “I do it to discredit you all, and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”

Everyone needs to remember that whenever they hear him criticize the media. By his own admission he isn’t doing it to correct the record or to stand up for the practice of journalism. He’s doing it to brainwash anyone dimwitted enough to fall for his deliberately deceitful disparagement of honest reporting. Sadly, there are way too many Deplorables who are happy to wallow in the filth that Trump spews, even after they’ve been told – by him – exactly what he’s doing.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump Lies Too Much to Take His Word that There Was Ever a Taliban Meeting

Posted by on September 8, 2019 at 10:56 am. 12 Comments :

Our Reality TV President has done more to debase the presidency of the United States than anyone could ever have imagined. Donald Trump’s pathological lying, infantile insults, willful ignorance, blatant self-dealing, mental infirmity, disrespect for the law and the Constitution, and bizarre affinity for foreign dictators, cannot be dismissed as mere character flaws. They are dangerously and deliberately anti-American.

Donald Trump

Among Trump’s multitude of personal and presidential improprieties are his official proclamations via Twitter. They represent an unprecedented devaluing of governmental discourse. It’s a cartoon version of diplomacy. And Trump’s latest Twitter pronouncement may truly have blasted through the bottom of the barrel and excavated a rough passage to China.

There is so much wrong with this tweet it’s hard to comprehend that it wasn’t the work of comedians on acid. And while many of Trump’s Twitter outbursts seem astonishingly stupid, this one really deserves further examination. So let’s break it down, shall we?

Disclosing Peace Talks with Terrorists
The first problem with this tweet is that it exists at all. No sane leader would even contemplate disclosing on Twitter that there was a secret meeting being planned with the same terrorists who harbored the 9/11 mastermind, Osama bin Laden. Nor would the cancelation of such a clandestine meeting be tweeted along with petulant threats to make future talks even more difficult.

Invitation Without Pre-conditions or Concessions
Trump’s tweet revealed that he intended to reward these still unrepentant terrorists with a meeting at a presidential retreat on U.S. soil, despite the fact that they have not conceded a single thing to earn it. To the contrary, they still celebrate 9/11 as a proud victory in their struggle to impose a radical form of islamic rule. They continue to be affiliated with Al Qaeda and it’s religious and imperialistic principles. And since the Taliban haven’t agreed to anything prior to the meeting, an agreement that fails to restrict their governance of Afghanistan appears all the more likely. Especially since Trump is such an awful negotiator that he already said publicly that he wants to get the U.S. out of Afghanistan. He needs a deal more than than they do, which can only result in a bad deal for the U.S.

Staining the Anniversary of 9/11
Trump also managed to show callous disrespect for the victims of 9/11, their families, and all Americans by scheduling a meeting with bin Laden’s protectors for the week of the anniversary of 9/11. The memory of that horrific event is still an open wound that millions of Americans recall in stark and painful detail. Apparently that isn’t the case for Trump.

Canceling the Meeting Because Terrorists Committed an Act of Terror
This is a mind-boggling admission by Trump. Peace talks are always held between two warring factions. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that one side or the other engages in violence prior to the completion of any peace treaty. That’s the whole reason for the talks. But Trump is pretending that a recent car bombing in Kabul is his excuse for calling off the meeting. What was he expecting? He never demanded anything, including a cease fire.

Trump Wants to Know: “How Many More Decades Are They Willing to Fight?”
It’s hard to imagine that Trump thinks this is a serious question. The Taliban, and their comrades in Al Qaeda, have already been fighting for many decades that go back to before the U.S ever set foot in Afghanistan. He should ask his friends in Russia. It’s further evidence that they are committed to a long term battle that Trump is showing he doesn’t have the stomach for. Most Americans certainly do not want this war to continue, but as President, it’s foolish and dangerous to show your cards to the enemy.

What Peace Talks?
It’s notable that there has been no confirmation from the Taliban that any meeting was ever actually scheduled. There is no indication that they traveled to the U.S., or were preparing to do so. There is no indication that they have had to alter such plans. They have not issued any statements criticizing Trump for abandoning the peace effort. Just total silence from the Taliban.

And that may be the most revealing part of this whole affair. Why is anyone taking Trump’s word that there were any peace talks scheduled in the first place? This is the President who has spent the last week insisting that his inclusion of Alabama among the states at risk during Hurricane Dorian was correct, despite documented evidence that it wasn’t. He went so far as to summon the Fox News White House correspondent to the Oval Office for a spanking because everyone at Fox wasn’t obediently regurgitating his lies. He’s the President who has told more than 12,000 lies just since his inauguration.

Consequently, it would be foolish to assume that any peace talks were actually scheduled with the Taliban. Trump could easily have made it up the way he made up what he said was the question he was asked most at the G7 meetings in France a couple of weeks ago. Or the way he made up the size of the crowd at his inauguration. Or the way that he made up that China pays the tariffs, not American importers and consumers. Or the way he made up untold numbers of other purposeful fallacies intend to deceive the American people. So until there is proof that peace talks at Camp David were actually scheduled between Trump and the Taliban, no one should believe they were. His tweet is just not good enough.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Wannabe Dictator Trump Proposes Banning Reporters He Doesn’t Like From the White House

Posted by on September 7, 2019 at 1:00 pm. 3 Comments :

The legacy that Donald Trump has said he wants to follow him when his presidency is over is that he exposed the “massive dishonesty in the Fake News.” He’s as likely to be remembered for that farcical delusion as for being the first man to walk on the moon. But history will undoubtedly record him as one of the most antagonistic presidents toward the Constitution’s protection of a free press.

Donald Trump Tyrant Dictator

As if to secure that title for posterity, Trump tweeted on Saturday morning what amounts to threat aimed at a news enterprise that he has long despised – The Washington Post. Trump’s festering hatred for the Post stems from his paranoid aversion to any media that has the audacity to tell the truth about him because he knows what that will lead to. He said that…

In that missive Trump achieved an impressively manic Level Four Fury by packing the adjectives “nasty, lightweight, disgusting,” and “fake,” all into one tweet. But worst of all, he proposed that the Post reporters be banned from White House grounds simply for doing their job. That’s typical of Trump’s raging authoritarian tendencies, wherein he believes that he has the right to pick and choose who is allowed to be a journalist.

He’s tried this twice before in recent weeks when he attempted to revoke the White House credentials of CNN reporter Jim Acosta and Playboy columnist Brian Karem. In both cases Trump lost in court and the journalists’ credentials where restored. This obviously gnaws at Trump who has openly yearned for the sort of tyrannical control of the press that his pal Vladimir Putin enjoys.

What Trump was reacting to was a Washington Post article by Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker that accurately described Trump’s wasted summer of embarrassment and failure. The headline read “Trump’s lost summer: Aides claim victory, but others see incompetence and intolerance.” The article was well sourced throughout and painted a clear picture of…

“…what some Trump advisers and allies characterize as a lost summer defined by self-inflicted controversies and squandered opportunities. […] The two months between Independence Day and Labor Day offered a fresh and vivid portrait of the president as seen by Trump’s critics — incompetent, indecisive, intolerant and ineffective.”

Trump included in his tweet a link to an op-ed by his press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, in the wingnut Washington Examiner. She tried to counter the Post’s article with examples of positive news stories about Trump that she said the Post ignored. The only problem with that was that the Post actually did cover those stories at the time. It’s astonishing that an alleged “press secretary” could write such a poorly researched op-ed, or that anyone would publish it. As for the Post, their executive editor, Marty Baron, defended his reporters and blasted Trump saying that:

“The president’s statement fits into a pattern of seeking to denigrate and intimidate the press. It’s unwarranted and dangerous, and it represents a threat to a free press in this country.”

That’s the Trump Media Doctrine in a nutshell. His paranoia and fragile ego drive him to attack the press with unsubstantiated charges of fakery and the infamous Stalinist rhetoric that “the media is the enemy of the people.” His hostility toward unfettered journalism even extends to friendly media like Fox News who Trump recently lambasted as “not working for us anymore,” and ordered his cult followers to “start looking for a new news outlet.” And on Friday he summoned Fox’s White House correspondent, John Roberts, to the Oval Office for an official spanking because he wasn’t worshipful enough.

So there is no one in the media who is safe. Trump will viciously assault his critics. And he will callously abandon his friends. He demands unwavering loyalty and the pure exaltation of Dear Leader. In order to avoid his wrath you must hate those whom he hates. And you must defend him at all times, no matter how foolish or contrary to American principles. And unfortunately, there are those in both the right-wing media and the Republican Nationalist Party who are all too willing to comply with those political terms of enslavement.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump Summons Fox News White House Correspondent to Oval Woodshed for a Spanking

Posted by on September 6, 2019 at 11:25 am. 10 Comments :

There is little in the current news cycle that is less important than Donald Trump’s absurd and pointless lies about Alabama being in the path of Hurricane Dorian. For the record, Alabama was ruled out as being at risk two days before Trump issued his warning to residents of that state. But despite the facts that were confirmed by the National Weather Service’s Hurricane Center, Trump has elevated this nonsense to ridiculously atmospheric heights.

Donald Trump

There is a case to be made that Trump’s lying is significant because it might have unnecessarily rattled Alabamians or even shifted resources to areas where they weren’t needed. But more troubling is that it puts Trump’s severe mental instability on display. He could have just said that a mistake was made and this story would have slipped quietly away. Instead he turned his egotistical aversion to ever being challenged up to twelve – that’s twelve pile-on tweets insisting that he was correct, contrary to reality.

The latest of these demented tweets came on Friday morning when he accused the media of being fixated on the story he has been obsessively ranting about. “They went Crazy,” he tweeted, “hoping against hope that I made a mistake (which I didn’t).” Well, yes he did, and all the evidence affirms it. He went on to whine about not getting an apology that he doesn’t deserve, including for “the Witch Hunt, or SpyGate!” Nevermind that the Mueller probe (aka “witch hunt” in Trump’s cartoon brain) produced abundant evidence of Trump’s illegal activities, and “SpyGate” was a figment of his imagination.

However, the most deplorable action on Trump’s part during this vacuous waste of time occurred on Thursday when, as reported by CNN, Trump ordered the Fox News White House correspondent, John Roberts, to appear before him in his chambers. Trump was very unhappy with the reporting by Roberts and Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. This was not the first time that Trump has lashed out at Fox for not being being sufficiently adoring. Just last week he even ordered his cult followers to “start looking for new news outlet.” But this may be the first time that he has reprimanded a Fox reporter in the oval Office.

In an email by Roberts that was provided to CNN, he said that Trump “insisted that it is unfair to say Alabama was never threatened by the storm.” Roberts wrote that Trump was “looking for acknowledgment that he was not wrong” when he falsely claimed on Sunday that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian. By that time it was already known that Dorian had turned sharply to the north and east. But that didn’t stop Trump from lobbying Roberts with outdated information and charts. Even in those old projections there was only a 5-10 percent chance of a slight brushing of a sliver of Alabama, while Trump had said that there was 95 percent probability of landfall in Alabama.

CNN also reported that Trump “voiced his displeasure about Fox News anchor Shepard Smith’s skeptical reporting about the Alabama map,” and asked Roberts “to hit back at Shepard Smith.” This would be regarded as wholly inappropriate for any president to say to any journalist, but this is Trump and Fox News, so all pretensions to credibility are irrelevant. What Trump was fuming about was Smith’s commentary (video below) on the Alabama non-controversy wherein he said that…

Some things in Trumplandia are inexplicable. This week’s edition, the President’s ongoing claim that Alabama was at risk from hurricane Dorian. It wasn’t. Maybe he got some bad info, somebody maybe he made a mistake. Maybe he was confused. We don’t know. But he was wrong. Everybody makes mistakes. Instead the next day, the president blamed the media for his own inaccurate warning and started to rewrite history on the matter. […]

Why would the president of the United States do this? He decries fake news that isn’t and disseminates fake news that is. Think China pays the tariffs. The wall is going up. Historic inauguration crowd. Russia probe is a witch hunt. You need an ID to buy cereal. Noise from windmills causes cancer. It’s endless.

Indeed, it does seem to be endless as Trump prolongs this spectacle into the weekend. And along with trying to bully his friends at Fox News, Trump ordered his Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor, Rear Admiral Peter J. Brown, to issue a flagrantly false work of propaganda that backed up Trump’s ever-expanding web of lies. And not surprisingly, Trump’s BFF, Sean Hannity, took to the air to criticize the “psychotic jackasses in the media mob” who he said were misreporting that Trump lied, even though they merely reported the actual events as they occurred.

The only reason this preposterous story persists is that Trump can’t keep his narcissistic mouth shut for thirty seconds. His deranged insistence that he be perceived as right in all matters at all times forces him to defend even the most trivial blather that oozes from his pie hole on an all too frequent basis. And this time he even tried to browbeat a friendly Foxie into complicity with his dishonest drivel. The fact that it didn’t work may be a sign of trouble ahead for Trump. We can only hope.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.